F2P-resilient code: development with years of evolution in mind

What the talk is about

Pavlo Mezentsev explains how to build free-to-play games with years of evolution in mind. After release a game lives and changes far longer than it takes to develop, and under pressure from events, hotfixes and competitors the product inevitably accumulates technical debt. He advises investing early in infrastructure (automated builds and releases), keeping quality standards high, and using code review, refactoring as part of feature work, and a culture of maintainable code. His main point is that debt is unavoidable, so it should be recorded, planned and repaid alongside regular tasks. Most importantly, engineers must explain the consequences of debt to product management in terms of product benefit: timelines, risks and missed opportunities. Useful for programmers, team leads and producers on long-running mobile projects.